🥳 SWIF 2025 Recap 🎉
A celebration of the south west independent film community.
👋 Hi filmmakers. Congratulations for this year. Very proud of this community, especially in such a tumultuous time. Have a read of what your fellow filmmakers got up to and reach out to each other.
Let's celebrate each other!
🎟️ Freelance Comms & Outreach Coordinator Nathan Hardie is proud to have curated his first event for We Are Parable, with more to come in the new year. - Instagram
🎙️ Screenwriter & Podcaster Ben Robins is proud to have produced more than 40 episodes of The Emerging Podcast, all about the realities of being an emerging screenwriter in Film & TV. - Instagram
📝 Composer, Writer-Director & Educator Helen Thompson is proud of her first commission and building connections, which has been the most enriching & rewarding part of her writing journey. - LinkedIn
👻 Festival Director Radi Nikolov is proud of the amazing connections & international guests welcomed to Screams By the Sea International Film Festival this year. - SBTSFF
🏆 The All Set West team are proud to have placed trainees & alumni on 17 productions this year and to have been awarded the Broadcast Tech Award for Best UK Industry Skills Initiative. - ASW
🎨 Art Dept Trainee Jay Adlam is proud of working with amazing people & achieving his first HETV credit at the Aardman Academy. - Art Bloop
🏊♀️ Writer-Director Ric Rawlins is proud of launching his feature film Wild Swimmers at the Bath Film Festival. - Instagram
🎥 Director of Photography Benjamin Tate is proud of taking the jump from Camera Assistant to DOP this year and working with some amazing creatives in Bristol. - Instagram
🥰 Writer-Director & Theatre-maker Corinne Walker is proud of refinding the joy in writing and being selected for the Scream Queens horror short development lab. - Instagram
📊 Actor, Writer & Producer Sarah Dawes is proud of the knowledge she's gained on the business side of feature film producing & looking forward to putting this into action in 2026. - Instagram
🔊 Sound Recordist & Sound Mixer Gerardo Pastor-Ruiz is proud of a challenging year with great results, making new connections and adding another two feature films under his belt. - GP-R Website
🍸 Producer Cicely Walmsley is proud of filming short film Why You Shouldn’t Date In Bristol with a brilliant and crazy talented cast & crew. - Instagram
📆 Actor & Filmmaker Gemma Reynolds is proud of helping her team get filming dates in place for short film Roisin & Raela & sticking to timelines. - Instagram
🤣 Writer & Producer Tom Lynas is proud of doing more networking this year and writing, shooting & editing his comedy short in 3 months. - LinkedIn
💃 Agent Sonia Wargacka is proud of taking chances & setting up her own talent agency. - Instagram
🌊 Director Pip Piper is proud of finishing & premiering feature documentary Jo in the Water this year. - JITW website
💪 Filmmaker Daisy Rigden is proud of finally believing in herself enough to create not one, but two short films, something she never would’ve imagined she’d be capable of. - Instagram
🐶 Writer-Director Rich Macey-Cross is proud to have premiered his short film Good Dog at his childhood cinema (The Little Theatre Bath), taken it to film festivals & won an award at The British Horror Film Festival. - Letterboxd
🫂 Community-Filmmaker Jess Scott is proud of creating a space where filmmakers have come together to create a community and support each other with Filmmakers Plymouth Social. - Fotonow
🎞️ Writer/Director Nathan Powles is proud to have shot two films and been extremely happy with both. - Instagram
🧱 Founder of SISTALAND Nikita Dare is proud of not giving up, trusting her vision, pushing through the messy middle and continuing to build SISTALAND as a meaningful, supportive space for women & underrepresented creatives. - Instagram
⚡️ Actor, Writer & Filmmaker Savannah Betts is proud of continuing to believe in herself and her creative journey, no matter how chaotic it may seem or how many detours it requires. - Instagram
💬 Actor/Writer George Reid is proud of building voiceover work within Bristol this year and working on more projects than ever. - Instagram
🎶 Jamie Hughes is proud of recording & releasing two music tracks with videos this year. - YouTube
🪕 Director, Editor & Composer Johan Nayar is proud of finishing his debut feature documentary The Banjo Boys, and was delighted to win the Audience Award at London Breeze Film Festival. - Instagram
⏳ Producer & Founder of Normal Girl Productions Jasmin Batler is proud of producing a short film in 48 hours with a fantastic crew (directed by Fiona Kruschnik), and of keeping going no matter how rough 2025 has been. - Instagram
🤣 And I'm proud of navigating eighteen months of "the film festival circuit" and still having the courage to make another film afterwards. - Holly's film newsletter on Beehiiv
🥂 Congratulations everyone! Looking forward to another year together.
If you'd like to support SWIF in 2026 you can give a one-off amount or take an on-going membership (less than £1 per digest) which gives you access to the filmmaker resources.
📣 Have something to share on the next digest? Could be an event, workshop, behind the scenes updates, crew call, showcasing your work or a personal ad. Get in touch! hollyholdsworth@gmail.com
💌 If you found this helpful please forward it to a friend.
Until next week!
Holly Holdsworth (she/her)
Writer-Director
where I am on the net
Inclusion in this email does not denote endorsement. I will always try to platform the best opportunities for this community and am not affiliated with any organisation, unless explicitly mentioned besides the link.
